The Angry Bear

Comments on personal consumption expenditures: the September anomaly and the Fed’s 2% inflation ceiliing Let me make a few comments on yesterday’s (Aug. 30) report on personal income and spending. Well, actually, just the spending part for now. First, there is a long-time relationship going back 60 years in the data whereby the YoY% growth in retail sales is higher in the first part of an economic expansion, and lower in the latter part, compared with...

[embedded content]A little Otis Taylor on a Friday Night

‘A suspect has been shot after a stabbing incident at Amsterdam Central Station,’ Dutch police said on Twitter.” Briefly: – Two people stabbed by an attacker. – Three shots fired by Police. – Two victims stabbed taken to the hospital. – Wounded attacker taken to the hospital. Attacker did not have a bullet-spewing-weapon. No 30 rounds sprayed about by police. No one dead.

Yesterday  (Aug. 29) in the Q2 GDP update corporate profits were reported for the first time. Since corporate profits are one of four long leading indicators identified by Prof. Geoffrey Moore, I have updated my look at them at Seeking Alpha. Usual shameless plug: reading this isn’t just educational, it puts a few pennies in my pocket. But of course corporate profits are a good way to measure how the producer sector is doing compared with...

House prices continue to rise, exacerbating unaffordability Now that we have both the Case Shiller and FHFA house price reports for June, let’s take a look at how they fit in to the overall market, and in particular on housing affordability. To begin with, let me repeat the general formula for the housing market: interest rates lead sales sales lead prices prices lead inventory Turning to the reports, in June, the 20-city Case Shiller house price index...

Mohammed Bin Salman Of Saudi Arabia In Trouble? This is what Juan Cole reports today from several sources.  Supposedly, as I reported here earlier, even though it was supposedly denied, the Saudi ARAMCO IPO deal is off.  The new reports have it that the final decision on this came from King Salman of Saudi Arabia, the father of the power hungry Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman (MbS), who has been the main advocate of the IPO as part of his Vision 2030...

Marrying NAFTA and The TPP: The US-Mexico “Free Trade Agreement” I really am not sure where to begin with this latest farce, Trump’s announcement yesterday of a supposed US-Mexico Free Trade Agreement.  Of course there was the farce of him trying to make the announcement with a live phone call between him and outgoing Mexican President Pena-Nieto (to be replaced on Dec. 1 by leftist populist Obrador), which took awhile to get going.  There is the...

  by New Deal democrat Even if the yield curve tightens no further, there will be consequences next year Both my posts from yesterday morning and today dealt with two aspects of the implications of the Fed raising rates. The unifying idea beneath both of them is that the Fed’s raising rates is already having consequences in the economy; consequences that are likely to be amplified should the Fed continue on its present path. And we have a pretty good...

What the compressed yield curve means for employment Aside from the threat of a recession down the road, is there cause for concern by economic Progressives in the fact that the yield curve has tightened (i.e., the difference in interest rates between long and short term bonds has become very small)? In a word, Yes. Four times during the 1980s and 1990s the difference in the interest yield between 2 and 10 year treasury bonds got about as low as it is...